drawing techniques
DESCRIPTION
This series of small primers on drawing encourages readers not only to pick up a pen and start drawing, but to see the world that surrounds them with fresh eyes. Visual thinking and using one's imagination are skills that are often neglected in today's world. With author Peter Jenny's help, readers will learn to perceive their environment in a new way and will soon follow his lead, discovering the joy of drawing.TRANSCRIPT
Princeton Architectural Press · New York
Drawing Techniques
Peter Jenny
L e a r n i n g T o S e e
If you’ve ever wanted to learn
to draw, or to draw better,
the Learning to See series offers
a mix of inspiration, encouragement,
and easy-to-complete exercises
that will have you filling the
pages of your sketchbook more
confidently in short order.
Introduction 6
gesticulate 16
Touch 20
Feel 26
Doodle 30
Move 36
Differentiate 42
Write 48
Form 56
Model 62
Materialize 68
Trace 76
Deconstruct 82
abstract 88
Fragment 94
imagine 100
Listen 112
Smear 118
Symbolize 126
imply 134
Distort 140
Conceal 146
exaggerate 152
Notes 158
Final Remarks 167
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In search of lost tracesWho doesn’t think back with fondness to the
colorful drawings of childhood? They were made
with great love, intended, for the most part, for
adult relatives. Who didn’t want grandmother’s
warm praise? Whose colored-marker art didn’t,
at least once, find its way into a picture frame
(or on the refrigerator)? We were all once chil-
dren, but as we became teenagers and entered
adulthood, our system of values changed, and
we no longer treasured the naïveté of our
childhood artwork. Thought processes started
to crowd out drawing, and the language of
introduction
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childhood was left behind. Art class at school
couldn’t help this—the world of academia values
drawing more as an artistic discipline than as
a language, and artistic subjects are often seen
as pastime activities.
For myselfThose who want to learn not just for practical
purposes but to enrich their lives follow the
path of self-help. They replace the word teach
in their vocabulary with the word discover.
This book’s playful activities, coupled with
instructions that are more suggestions than
commands, aim at easing this process of self-
help and encourage you to rediscover the
language of drawing.
The lines are inside of usWhen we take the direct path to a goal, we
generally assume that it is the best one because
it is the shortest. However, things are different in
the context of drawing. Those who take the
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direct path limit their ways of thinking about
and creating images. But discovering the
language of images is precisely what you should
strive to do, not by blindly “copying” the indi-
vidual drawing activities in this book but by using
them to motivate you to expand and combine
them as you see fit.
Learn from what we do anywayTalking, eating, sleeping, communicating,
playing—who, except for a few artists and
children, would include drawing in this list of
daily activities? Yet drawing is essential, even for
nonartists and adults. The list above (including
drawing) shows that there is no risk of expression
becoming standardized, as everyone has his
or her own way of doing these things. When talk-
ing of drawing, we need to replace the idea of
doing something the “right” or “wrong” way with
the concept of experimentation. This is the les-
son that children teach us—there is no right or
wrong way to draw. Most adults assume that
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there are established rules in drawing and that
they just don’t know what these guidelines are.
Artists know such rules, but they also know that
they exist so that they may be broken. Artists
defy these rules in order to find new forms
through drawing and to achieve a new way of
seeing. Each rule leads us to a set of characteris-
tics that we can examine and experiment with.
The following exercises are thus not directives
but aids to discovery within the process of drawing—
a process that constantly re-creates itself.
The known is the unknownWe know that we see through our sense of
vision, but we don’t perceive only with our eyes,
we also “see” with our ears, our fingers, our nose,
and our tongue. All of our senses inform how
and what we draw. For instance, when we say
that a certain drawing is beautiful, we also think
of good or bad “taste.” We associate drawings
with touch and find our own rhythm in them.
While the eyes may be the antenna that leads to
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the other senses, every other sense is also able
to take on the role of the antenna. In the end,
your drawings should be as you like them to be—
the only truth is that perception is made up of
the interplay of our senses.
From helplessness to cooperationA successful drawing is never the result of
the expression of a single sense—it emerges
when one is able to supplement what is missing
using another sense. (The senses are social:
should one fail, the others will come to its aid.)
In drawing, the word right is thus a synonym for
meaningful. These observations seem to refer
to a withdrawal into the corporal—to simply rely
on one’s senses. By itself that would be too little,
however. Drawing also means opening up by
communicating something.
The pretense of artAdults automatically think of drawing and sketch-
ing as artistic practices. This qualification
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is not surprising, but it doesn’t acknowledge
the act of perception, which always involves
multiple senses. This denial minimizes the
possible range of expression. Here a certain
hierarchy creeps in: the belief that drawings are
always a preparatory step for something more
important, something more complete. This
hierarchy is also evident in the presumption
that the medium belongs to artists alone.
The realization that drawing is not only a craft
but also an intellectual discipline shows how
misplaced this assumption would be.
People who draw. . .People who draw more consciously evaluate
what they perceive by engaging in visual think-
ing. Those who draw use not only their eyes
but also their other senses in order to “see”
something. And those who draw create a void
between the lines, which opens up space for
other thoughts. Who wouldn’t want to be able
to do this? All you need is some paper and
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a pencil to make lines that sway, swing, inter-
twine, delimit, and that spark ideas. Lines,
contours, and shading help us complement what
is in front of us and create a reality that doesn’t
really exist—that doesn’t aim to look exactly like
something—but comes from another motivation:
to create something that didn’t exist before.
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gesticulate
We all gesticulate with our hands as we speak.
Explaining, illustrating, supporting, and
emphasizing are just a few of the tasks that we
communicate—at least partly—through
gestures. “Drawing in the air” offers us an
opportunity for expression that we can wield
without reservation. Use this process
consciously—speak to someone with gestures.
The gestures can be visualized using a
camera (open aperture) and a flashlight with
a spotlight in a darkened room.
10 min.
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2
20
40 min.,
one sheet
of
8.5 × 11
paper
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Touch
“Seeing” with our hands points to the original
form of grasping something, of understanding.
Close your eyes and run your fingers over an
object for several minutes. Draw it with your eyes
closed. These two exercises can also be done
simultaneously: touch with the left hand and
draw with the right.
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